


Models on a Runway

by aroceu



Series: gender studies [7]
Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff, Genderfluid Character, High School, Other, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroceu/pseuds/aroceu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She still doesn’t understand how out of everyone else in the world, she went on a date with Kenny McCormick today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Models on a Runway

Butters is pretty sure her whole body flushes when Kenny asks her on a date. She's liked Kenny for ages; she didn’t think it was that obvious.  
  
Well Eric always called her a fag when she was around Kenny; and when Stan had mentioned that Kenny was taking Token to a dance a couple of years back, Kyle had said that Butters was more suitable for Kenny.  
  
Buteters has never prided herself on her perceptive skills.  
  
Kenny’s grinning, wearing orange and blue and white today, so Butters swallows. She wishes she had hair long enough to cover her eyes, but she’s always liked the way her short hair tickles the tips of her ears.  
  
“O-Of course!” she stammers. “I mean, who wouldn’t?”  
  
Kenny grins. “A lot of people wouldn’t."  
  
Butters huffs. Her palms are sweating so she makes herself remember that time when Kenny had swallowed an entire bottle of ketchup for fifty bucks. (It’s a tactic Eric had taught her, when she’s around people who make her nervous—remember something awful they did, or make one up.)  
  
“You’ve gone out with a lot of people in this school,” she says, and blushes right after the statement.  
  
“And yet,” says Kenny, “you still said yes to going out with me. What does that make you?"  
  
Butters shrugs, hoping to say something witty in response. “Hopeful,” is what she blurts out, instead.  
  
Kenny smiles. “Me too."  
  
*  
  
Sometimes people in school still call her a boy. Sometimes other girls look at her funny when she walks into the restroom, and a substitute will say, “Mr. Stotch,” and she’ll have to correct them with an, “Um, Miss.” Sometimes they don’t take her seriously anyway because her voice is the same pitch as Kyle’s.  
  
“What do you do about it?” she asks Kenny, on their date. It’s the weekend and they’re buying smoothies. She’s slurping her strawberry one.  
  
“In school? Well I just tell ‘em what I feel like, and if they don’t respect it, they’re assholes.” Kenny slurps his chocolate smoothie, equally loud.  
  
“Doesn’t it make you feel… weird?”  
  
“Like they’re dicks? Yeah.” Kenny slurps again.  
  
“No, I mean.”  
  
Butters’s parents had talked her through this; they hadn’t accepted it so well, of course. But they mentioned that she was ill, that she has—“Dysphoria,” she says, finally finding the word.  
  
“Oh.” Kenny sits back. “Well, no.;"  
  
“Then how do you know how you feel?"  
  
Kenny laughs. “How do you know how _you_  feel? You just know. ‘Cause you feel it."  
  
They finish their smoothies and Butters pays and then they go off. Kenny catches Butters’s hand in her own.  
  
Butters says, “Y-You don’t expect me to go back to your place, do you?” If she had both her hands free, she’d rub her knuckles together.  
  
“Only if you want to.”  
  
Butters blushes. “Um."  
  
“I’m just kidding,” says Kenny. Between their date she’d said that she was feeling like a _she_ , all of a sudden. Butters doesn’t forget.  
  
Kenny grins and says, “Want to hang out with the guys?”  
  
“Is that still a part of our date?” Butters asks nervously.  
  
“Only if you want it to be.”  
  
She watches Butters. Butters feels her own face heat up.  
  
“If it still is, does that mean we can do something else together after?” she hears herself ask.  
  
Kenny’s grin gets wider. “Sure.”  
  
As it turns out, they’re at Eric’s house today. When they enter (without knocking; Eric exclaims, “Hey!” and Butters wonders how Kenny knew they would be here) Kenny announces, “Dudes, I’m not a dude today."  
  
“Raw,” says Eric. “Does that mean I can use my bitch jokes on you?”  
  
“Shut up.” Kenny throws a pillow from the ground at him.  
  
Eric starts. “You come into _my_  house, you throw _my_  pillows—”  
  
“What’s Butters doing here?” Stan nods towards her.  
  
Butters balls her fists together in embarrassment, though her left is still in Kenny’s so she ends up squeezing her hand. Kenny looks at her for a brief moment.  
  
Butters wants to sink into the ground.  
  
“We’re on a date,” says Kenny.  
  
“Aw, our two favorite—hey!” Eric’s cut off when Kyle smacks him upside the head.  
  
“Don’t say it!"  
  
“I don’t know what you—mean—ah!—Jew! Stop hitting me!”  
  
“Our two favorite girls,” says Stan.  
  
Kenny grins. “Is that what you think Cartman was going to say?"  
  
Stan says, “The better part of me hopes so.”  
  
“It was!” Eric shrieks from Kyle smacking him with a pillow.  
  
Kyle says, “Yeah, right!"  
  
*  
  
They spend most of the afternoon at Eric’s house. It’s kind of fun for Butters in the first hour, and the ones that follow, because Kenny’s holding her hand and watching the boys race; then Kyle says, “Why don’t you play?” and Kenny lets her go and they do. Butters accidentally shifts midway through the race and ends up half-sitting on Kenny’s lap, and then Kenny is so distracted that by some miracle, Butters wins.  
  
The boys cheer and Kenny laughs and says, “You did that on purpose,” and snuggles her for the rest of the day.  
  
At the end, Kenny walks her home and asks, “Do you think of me as a boy or a girl right now?”  
  
Butters glances at her with surprise. "I—You're just Kenny!"  
  
“I’m always just Kenny.” A smile. “Want a goodnight kiss?"  
  
“We’re not at my house yet,” says Butters.  
  
Kenny points down the sidewalk, the opposite direction of Butters’s place. “I’m that way, though. And you don’t want me kissing you outside of where your parents can see, do you?”  
  
“True,” says Butters. She chews on her lip. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”  
  
She’s sure Kenny brightens up. “It’s easy. Want me to show you?"  
  
Butters sticks her bottom lip between her teeth, but nods.  
  
Then Kenny’s holding her hand and swooping her in, lips petal soft on her own. Butters is sure she tastes hints of their milkshakes from earlier, and a little bit of cheese from when Kenny had nicked some of Eric’s crackers at his house, too. She blushes and Kenny holds her face, like maybe she doesn’t want to let her go just yet.  
  
But she does, only an inch. Their noses and foreheads are touching.  
  
“See?” Kenny says, breathless. “Easy."  
  
“Easy.” Butters’s head feels foggy. “No Poptarts."  
  
“Hm?"  
  
“I thought you’d taste like Poptarts.” Butters’s cheeks get even warmer.  
  
Kenny smiles. “If I kiss you after I go home and eat dinner, then you’d be correct."  
  
“I like Poptarts,” Butters says, before she realizes what she’s saying.  
  
Kenny is positively brighter than the moon.  
  
“See you tomorrow?"  
  
Butters manages to smile back. She still doesn’t understand how out of everyone else in the world, she went on a date with Kenny McCormick today.  
  
“See you tomorrow,” she says.  
  
*  
  
The school doesn’t catch word of their dating until after their sixth date, which is about a month in. Kenny likes going on dates on the weekends because they say that’s when they have more time, but after the third or so Butters accidentally lets it slip that she’d prefer it during the weekday, when she has an excuse to come home later instead of having to face her parents in the living room.  
  
Then Kenny’s face darkens and they say, “Oh,” and starts taking her on dates every day after school.  
  
So after the first few after school dates, Kenny comes to Butters at lunch and slips next to her on the bench. Butters nearly jumps.  
  
“Hi Butters,” Kenny says cheerfully. There’s a post-it note that says _he/him_  at the front of his jacket. “What’s up?”  
  
“I,” says Butters, blushing. The post-it note thing had been her idea, but only because one day Kenny had moaned about needing to tell everyone he interacted with during the day about what pronouns to use. She’d suggested for him to make like a name tag from a post-it note or something, but didn’t think her idea would actually be followed through.  
  
“Hi Kenny,” Wendy says easily. She’s sitting across from Butters, and dips her fries in her ketchup. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Kenny nudges Butters. Butters fumbles with her milk and can’t look anyone in the eye.  
  
Kenny sighs, though he sounds more fond than anything. “We’re dating,” he announces to the table.  
  
“Oh!” Wendy exclaims, looking between the two of them. “Congratulations.”  
  
“Th-Thanks Wendy!” Butters says, relieved.  
  
“He’s a heartbreaker, that one.” Token appears at their table, sitting next to Wendy. “Hi Kenny."  
  
“Hey Token,” Kenny says easily.  
  
Butters rubs her knuckles together, because won’t Token be sore at her for dating his ex? Won’t Kenny get offended that she wants to sit here with them?  
  
But Kenny glances at her and rubs a hand down her back. Butters jolts in her seat and almost away from him.  
  
“I don’t think Kenny’s a heartbreaker!” she says to Token, because she’s dating him now. She has to have some responsibility over Kenny’s virtue, doesn’t she?  
  
Token smiles. “Who knows?” he says. His eyes flicker to Kenny’s face.  
  
“Not to Butters,” Kenny says, returning the expression.  
  
*  
  
After that, word gets around. Butters the New Girl is dating Kenny the New Sometimes Girl. Kenny laughs at the nicknames. Butters wishes they’d stop.  
  
“It’s not like,” she says to Kenny, as they stop by Kenny’s favorite burger joint this afternoon. “It’s not like u-us bein’ girls sometimes,” she adds for Kenny, “is the only important part of us!”  
  
“Yeah, well.” Kenny shrugs and hands her her foil wrapped burger. The post-it says _she/her_  now. “It’s South Park. You know how people are.”  
  
“I guess,” Butters mumbles.  
  
They grab a table near a window and eat. Butters swings her legs and munches on her burger. She doesn’t notice that Kenny is staring at her until she’s halfway done, and Kenny is just watching with a slightly dazed expression on her face.  
  
“What?” Butters says, startled. “Is there somethin’ on my face?”  
  
“What? Oh, no,” Kenny says, and chuckles. “Well, maybe a little ketchup right there.” She reaches across the table to wipe at Butters’s lip.  
  
Butters blushes. “Thanks,” she says.  
  
“You’re just really nice,” Kenny continues. She takes a bite of her own burger, chews, swallows. “I didn’t realize we’ve been dating for this long already.”  
  
“I—” Butters doesn’t know what to say. “Me-Me neither!” she decides.  
  
Kenny beams. “I really like you, Butters,” she says.  
  
And Butters had always kind of figured, since Kenny had asked her out, since their first kiss, since—a lot of things, really, that have happened in the span of four months. Kenny is a gentleman, Kenny is a lady, Kenny is polite and laughs at jokes Butters isn’t sure if she’s allowed to laugh at and when her brother had gotten her pronouns mixed up once, Kenny had teasingly flipped him off and told him what they were. Kenny’s always been out there, you know, different.  
  
But Butters has been, too, and has known it all her life. Even before this, when her parents looked at her a little less weird than they do today, she’d known that she was special. But she’s seen Cartman tame a Cthulu and Craig save the world from giant gerbils before, so she figures a lot of her friends are special.  
  
She feels herself turn red, anyway, and tries to meet Kenny’s eye across the table. “I really like you, too,” she says.  
  
Kenny’s foot jostles hers against the diner floor. Butters smiles into her sandwich.  
  
*  
  
One day, Kenny takes her out shopping. Kenny’s post-it note says _they/them_  today and keeps falling off. They’ve had to make five new ones already.  
  
“Fuck,” Kenny huffs, picking it up from where it had fallen to the ground and tossing it into the trash can. They’re at South Park Mall, with their backpacks on.  
  
Kenny rifles through their bag and makes a sound of irritation. “I don’t have any stickies left,” they grumble.  
  
“Oh!” says Butters, and opens up her own bag. “I probably do.”  
  
She finds a pastel yellow pad and hands it over to them. “Thanks,” Kenny says, gratefully.  
  
Butters’s post-it sticks well without falling. Butters glances at it happily every once in a while. She’s pretty sure that Kenny doesn’t notice, which is good. Kenny keeps peering through the windows, humming and deliberating what shop to go into.  
  
“Is there anything you want to buy?” they ask after a moment.  
  
“What? Oh.” Butters turns pink. “No, thank you. But thanks for asking,” she adds, remembering her manners.  
  
Kenny laughs. “Oh, c’mon Butters, there’s gotta be something,” they say.  
  
Butters fidgets. It’s been a while since she was Marjorine, for that brief week in the fourth grade. But it had been one of her favorite weeks, even though her wig had itched and tickled too much, because everyone looked at her and called her _she_  without realizing it was her.  
  
Her parents would never let her buy her own clothes, though, so Butters clenches and unclenches her fist. “Um,” she says, after a moment. “A dress?”  
  
Kenny’s eyes light up delightedly. “Sounds awesome!” they say. “C’mon, I know this really cheap place.”  
  
They tug her along to a shop at the corner of the mall, which has mostly old ladies roaming around, but some of the dresses are flower print. There are others with vibrant colors, and Butters falls in love with them immediately.  
  
“Do you shop here?” she asks Kenny curiously.  
  
Kenny laughs and shakes their head. “Nah. Dresses aren’t really my thing.” They shrug. “But I come here with my sister all the time.”  
  
“Oh, right.” Butters brightens up. She’d forgotten that Kenny has a sister. “That must be nice.”  
  
“It is,” Kenny agrees, taking her through the aisles. They make their way through the moth-bitten and smellier clothes, to the back where things are cheaper and don’t smell as bad. They also look nicer, and Butters hadn’t really expected that, but she’s not about to look a gift horse in its mouth.  
  
“You like dresses?” Kenny asks her, as Butters begins to peek at a yellow and blue striped one.  
  
“Yeah,” Butters nods. “I mean, I-I miss bein’ Marjorine sometimes, y’know?"  
  
Then she feels silly, because how is Kenny going to remember who Marjorine is?  
  
But Kenny laughs suddenly, bright and surprised. “Oh my god, Marjorine,” they say. “I remember—and you were dancing to Justin Timberlake at _Heidi’s_  house.”  
  
“That was fun,” Butters says defensively.  
  
Kenny waves their hand. “I know, I know, I thought it probably would be for you,” they say. And before Butters can retort, they add, “It looked it. I was happy for you then.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” says Butters, remembering other details of that night. “It wasn’t all that a walk in a park.”  
  
They roam through the aisles, and Butters puts on a mock fashion show for Kenny in the dressing room, strutting out wearing a pink and white flowery dress at one point, and a green one another. Kenny loves all her dresses and refuses to give her one negative comment, even though Butters insists for them to be honest. “I am,” they say, laughing.  
  
In the end, Butters settles for a few spring-colored dresses she had tried on. She goes to hand over what little cash she has in her wallet, but Kenny pulls out a card, before she can.  
  
“Kenny,” Butters says, petulantly.  
  
“What?” Kenny says, raising their eyebrows. “I dragged you in here. I’m paying.”  
  
“You didn’t _drag_  me,” Butters insists.  
  
Kenny waves her off. “Ignore her,” they say to the cashier, who looks surprised for a moment, but doesn’t say anything.  
  
Kenny pays and Butters huffs as they walk out. “I wouldn’t’ve gotten anything if I knew you were paying,” she mumbles.  
  
“I know,” says Kenny, but they’re smiling. “I want to pay. And I wanted to buy you dresses. And don’t worry about it,” they say, when Butters opens her mouth again. “It’s just some extra money I made at work, it’s no big deal."  
  
“Fine,” Butters grumbles, folding her arms across her chest.  
  
But she’s wearing the blue and yellow dress she’d spotted earlier, so there’s not much to complain about. “Hey,” Kenny says. “About that Marjorine thing—you wanna ask the girls to do your makeup again?”  
  
Butters thinks they’re joking for a moment, so she says, “I dunno, they might not have the makeup from back then.”  
  
Kenny rolls their eyes. “‘Course not, but they got new makeup now.” And when Butters looks at her with wide eyes, they add, “You should go for it.”  
  
*  
  
Butters doesn’t, only because she’s too chicken. The night after their shopping date she switches into her old clothes and tells Kenny to keep her dresses at their house—her parents would kill her if they saw her dresses. They’d also probably burn them. Butters knows her parents are insane.  
  
But at least they haven’t sent her to some weird correction camp since she told them, so she figures that they’re better than they were before.  
  
She stares at Wendy’s and Bebe’s makeup at lunch sometimes, and eventually concludes that that’s not what she wants or likes. She’s happy with her hair fuzzy and short, skin a little pimply sometimes but still baby smooth. Bebe and Wendy are gorgeous, obviously, but not in a way that she wants to be them. More that, if she weren’t dating Kenny at the moment, she’d want to date them.  
  
She accidentally lets this spill to Kenny when they’re talking about her not using makeup. For a second Butters is worried that Kenny will be mad, but Kenny just goes, “ _I know_ ,” and nods all emphatically.  
  
They go to Eric’s again on a _he/him_  day, and Kenny apologizes as they make their way up Eric’s front steps. “I know Cartman’s insufferable,” he says, “but the guys are the guys, y’know?”  
  
Butters nods; she knows that being on a date with Kenny doesn’t mean they don’t interact with other people. They interact with other people all the time, at shops and restaurants and stuff. “I know,” she chirps. “I like them.”  
  
Kenny snorts. “Of course you do,” he says. But he doesn’t sound mean about it, and smiles before letting her in.  
  
The other guys let her play: Butters is pretty sure they’re only nice to her because she’s dating Kenny, but she’ll take it. Ms. Cartman comes in later and compliments Butters on her dress, because Bebe had helped Butters change before school today. Butters stammers a thank you, and Ms. Cartman winks and says that she should give her some fashion tips.  
  
“Your mom’s really nice, Eric,” she says, once Ms. Cartman has left the living room.  
  
“She’s fuckin’ annoying,” Eric grumbles, button mashing.  
  
“Cartman’s just a douche,” says Stan, as if he hadn’t said that a billion times before. “No one knows how he’s his mom’s son.”  
  
“Oh I know,” Kyle pipes up. “Probably because his dad’s—”  
  
“Shut up, Kahl!” Cartman roars, and tears his gaze away from the screen to chuck his controller at Kyle’s head.  
  
Kyle winces. “Ow, you asshole, that really hurt!” he shouts. “You could’ve hit my brains out!"  
  
“Good!”  
  
“At least you know what that’s like, not having any brains—”  
  
Kenny sighs. His arm is around Butters, who watches worriedly as Kyle and Cartman argue.  
  
“I hate my friends,” he says jovially.  
  
Butters laughs into his neck.  
  
*  
  
It’s been a lot of dates and a lot of months since their first. After another shopping mall date, during which Butters insists to buy Kenny a new game for her PSP in return for her dresses the other day, Butters trails Kenny to the end of the sidewalk to her home.  
  
Kenny shifts from foot to foot. “You should come over,” she decides, after a moment. “But you probably don’t want to eat dinner with my family, so we should—”  
  
“Oh, I do!” Butters interrupts, and then blushes. Why had she done that? She knows that interrupting is rude!  
  
Kenny is undeterred, though, more focused on her words and frowning. “Are you sure?” she asks. “I told you before, all we eat is Poptarts—”  
  
“And I told you that I like Poptarts,” says Butters, chipper.  
  
Kenny’s mouth quirks a smile. “That’s true,” she says.  
  
They walk together, talking about school and food and the dude at the gaming store today, who was an asshole. Kenny’s the one who says it first, but the way she insults people sounds a little like a compliment sometimes. It’s weird, but Butters figures that she probably wouldn’t mind too terribly if Kenny called her an asshole. Though she hopes that she wouldn’t have done something to warrant the insult in the first place.  
  
They hold hands, Butters’s gloved one in Kenny’s bare one. She realizes that Kenny’s fingers must be cold and curses for not having the foresight to offer her one sooner. She does, and Kenny sends her a grateful smile before slipping it on her other hand.  
  
And because Butters figures it shouldn’t be too terrible having her bare hand in Kenny’s, she takes her other one off and puts it on backwards on her left hand.  
  
“I think you’re the person I’ve dated the longest,” Kenny says thoughtfully.  
  
Butters nearly jumps in surprise. “R-Really?” she says.  
  
Kenny shrugs, and flashes her a quick smile. “I don’t mind, obviously,” she says. “It’s just interesting to think about.”  
  
“I-I’m really happy, Kenny.” Oh gosh, what if Kenny decides to break up with her tomorrow? Or tonight? What if Butters is too much to be dating for so long?  
  
But Kenny squeezes her hand, which is pink from the cold and tangled tightly with her own. “I am, too,” she says. “You make me happy.”  
  
Butters blushes and scuffles her feet bashfully.  
  
At Kenny’s house, they eat Poptarts and laugh when Kenny’s dad electrocutes himself with the toaster that some other family had given them a few years back. Kenny tells her that eating Poptarts right after they come out burns her tongue like a bitch, but they’re toasty and taste good so it’s nothing to complain about. They burn the tip of their tongues together and Butters meets Kenny’s sister, who gushes over her dresses and says she wants to go dress shopping with her one day. Kenny rolls her eyes, but Butters eagerly says yes, of course, she’d love more company.  
  
Kenny jokes about her own sister stealing her girlfriend away. Karen sticks her tongue out at her.  
  
After, they go to Kenny’s room, because Butters needs to do her homework and she’d asked her parents if she could sleep over at a friend’s today. They’d made some weird noise in response, but Butters had taken it as a yes.  
  
When they get upstairs, though, Butters sits on Kenny’s bed and starts pulling out her books. Kenny watches her a moment before she kisses her.  
  
She’s sweet and warm and tastes like Poptarts. Butter smiles lazily when Kenny pulls back.  
  
“What was that for?” she asks, blinking in Kenny’s smiling face.  
  
“Nothing,” says Kenny, and somehow it sounds like _everything_. Butters’s heart jumps, as Kenny pulls out her own homework.  
  
“Thank you, Kenny,” she says suddenly.  
  
Kenny holds her hand and squeezes. It makes Butters’s heart feel wonderful and full.


End file.
